Instead, the questions are what we return to, again and again. It’s not the formal experiment I’d anticipated. The book’s subtitle and structure are taken from the intake questionnaire for unaccompanied child migrants. That is how chance works, at least for those of us who do not have the certainty of grander schemes.” As a result of her missing green card, she is put in touch with the American Immigration Lawyers Association soon afterward, she begins to volunteer as a translator for undocumented children. Luiselli writes, “Ever since I was left somewhat alone, without gods, I have been a ferocious believer in the power of small coincidences.

When Luiselli’s family returns to New York, everyone’s green card except hers has arrived, and she must begin the process of petitions and queries to find out what has happened.

The family’s perspective shifts: the absurdity of the word “alien” on their recent immigration forms becomes less a subject for wordplay and jokes and more a term that dehumanizes and helps to justify the mass deportation of children. Her husband’s son is visiting from Mexico. To complicate matters further, Luiselli, her husband, and her daughter are waiting for their green cards. While traveling southwest, news arrives of “the wave of children arriving, alone and undocumented, along the border.” As Luiselli and her family continue their journey, the news becomes increasingly horrifying and the public response to the presence of the children becomes more strange and sad. It’s a vacation, but one that becomes heavy with implications. Luiselli is herself an immigrant, and in the summer of 2014, we open the book to find her and her family-her husband, her daughter, and her husband’s son-on a road trip from New York to Arizona. Its cover is minimalist: a black small caps serif font on a parchment background, no image. I’d heard good things about her novels, and so when I saw that Luiselli had written a book-length essay, I added it to my purchase from Coffee House Press in that third-day AWP book-buying fever. I’ll admit that when I bought the book back in March of this year, I didn’t know what to expect.

The book informs, and it also advocates for individuals to take action toward change. It was neither written nor published as newsfeeds were filled with stories of families torn apart at the border, but it does provide additional context for the horrific circumstances surrounding child immigration. Though it feels very timely to events of 2018, Valeria Luiselli’s book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions begins in the summer of 2014 and ends in a postscript dated 2017.

Tell me how it ends